Although I can see some threads about game recommendations, I live in a place (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in Canary Islands - Spain - ) where is quite difficult to find a variety of them. So I'm a little restricted (well, I could try to buy them abroad...).

Let me introduce myself... . Many, many, many years ago, I player games like NAC wargames, some Avalon Hill games, and classics like 'Risk' or 'Escape from Colditz'. I re-discovered board games a couple years ago with Gigamic games (Cathedral, Quoridor, Pylos, Quarto), but I have again falled in love after discovered, watching, played and bought a couple of 'modern' classics: Carcassonne and Catan.

So, here comes my preferences:

- I would like a 2 player game to play with my wife. Occasionally I could play 3 player, and on rare times, 4.

Le Havre is really long, even for 2 players. There is a shorter variant, but it still takes up a good amount of table space, so I think it's eliminated by one if not both of those things.

Ticket to Ride is easy to teach, colorful, not too long, and while its board is a little large, it doesn't need a lot of space other than that. We played it twice again last night. It takes some strategy, but not so much that you can't talk and be social if you wish. I've introduced this game to more non-gaming friends and family than any other, with solid success. Lots of expansions/variants to change it up a bit later, too.

Pillars of the Earth was one of our pre-BGG games. We played it and enjoyed it, but it doesn't come out much anymore because of the blocking, and because of the somewhat tedious setup. It's somewhat more work than fun. I'd rather play Stone Age, or most of all, Agricola.

Speaking of Agricola, we can play a 2-player game in about an hour. The first time through, we didn't quite know what to do, but we were up and running quickly. It takes a decent amount of table space, but it has great replayability. At 70+ games, it's one of the best values of games we bought, or certainly for games over $30. If I was going to buy or keep one $30+ game in my collection, this would be it.

Kingsburg is fun, but the player mats are surprisingly flimsy (some people laminate or otherwise reinforce them). It can be frustrating the last round, if one player feels they can't catch up (as opposed to Stone Age or TTR, which score some points during the game, and some at the end)

Based upon your preferences, I'd first recommend trying Lost Cities, Hive, Dominion, Ingenious, and/or Ticket to Ride (whichever you prefer, but I think Nordic Countries is especially good with 2 or 3, if you can find it)...Agricola, Le Havre, & Caylus might be a bit heavier/longer than what you're lookin' for (but they're good games)...Small World is lots of fun but I think it's a better game with 3 or more players...

based on your preference and accessibility, one light game that you can play, enjoy, and just relax is Thebes. Thebes is a light game about archeology. It's heavy on theme. Basically, you collect knowledge about many sites/ruins in Europe, then you simulates the "digging" part with picking artifacts from "the sites (aka bag)" according to your knowledge and time spent. Many artifacts are in form of sand (worthless) but many also contains points. You should check it out. Good to play with 2 and 4 players, and best with 3 (IMO).

I would highly recommend Agricola(if that's your taste). It's currently my favorite game. I play it with 1 (yes, solo), 2, 3, 4, and 5. Every game is different. The special action cards (according to number of players), improvement cards, and occupation cards make the game fresh every time, not to mention there's 3 decks and many expansion decks out there. As the box said, it takes about 30 minutes per player, but if you have played it often, one can play it in 20 minutes per player. Setup and maintenance per round is a little bit fiddly, but a few boxes of container should help along the way.

Le Havre is one good game also. It feels like agricola, but the difference is as light and day. Le havre plays a little bit too long, but it's simplicity is genius. There's not much option in one player turn (you only got one worker), but as the game plays on, the building options could get overwhelming in a good way. It's just a matter of planning, optimization, kan know when is the time to play your move.

Small world is a good game if you want to taste a different game of euro. It is mainly a land-grabbing and kinda war-ish game with territorial grabbing tokens. It's fun, it's fast, and it's scalabe.

So that's my 3 recommendation

Lastly, my advice is to try the game first if it is a long game. Some might like it, some might hate it.